Notes On Duck Herding Throughout The World

On November 9, 2014 by Tim Newman

That’s right, you heard me – duck herding. This article started out as a showcase for a video which features a Russian farmer shouting at ducks, who, in turn, obey his commands. The video itself is good enough to carry the article, but while I was Googling around the subject, I found more photos of duck herding from other countries, so I thought I’d just whack it all in here for you to moderate.

It’s difficult to imagine how you would train ducks to do your bidding, they’re unruly at best. Duck brains aren’t set up in the same way as a dog’s, for instance, but I guess ducks fear being walloped like every other animal, so if you wallop them enough, they’ll soon learn how not to get walloped.

I suppose if the Russian farmer shouted at the ducks often enough, and rewarded them, that would be enough for their feeble minds to comprehend? I don’t know. Any way, this real-life Dr Doolittle managed it, kudos to him.

Take a gander at this, it’s amazing:

Also, believe it or not, duck herding is a sport, but it normally uses a sheep dog… well… a duck dog I suppose you would call it. Like this:

The photo at the top of this post is from a duck herding event in the UK if you’re interested in seeing this kind of thing live.

Before I let you go, here are some other pictures I found whilst trying to see if duck herding was a real thing or not. These first couple are taken in China’s Zhejiang province, a couple of guys are herding their 5,000 ducks through Taizhou city traffic…

Impressive, right?…

Another similar job being done elsewhere in China…

Here’s a Vietnamese duck herder, although I think they might be geese?…

And this last one shows another duck herder in China in the 1920s…

According to an article in the Telegraph in 2009, duck herding has become a popular corporate event… It obviously hasn’t though, I assume none of you lot have heard of it either. Corporate duck herding would be much more entertaining than a karaoke session followed by a dirty kebab and a guilt-infested headache though.